If you鈥檙e not a vocalist, actor, or radio show host, it鈥檚 possible that you鈥檝e never thought of your voice as an instrument. But whether you鈥檙e singing for an audience, giving a presentation, or talking on the phone, your voice can inform others鈥� perceptions of who you are.
Host Anita Rao鈥檚 voice is her bread and butter, and in this episode she speaks with three other guests with significant relationships to their voices. Mezzo soprano, music instructor, and trans activist recounts how her coming-out experience affected her relationship with her voice. breaks down the science behind vocal production and describes their work as a vocal coach for trans and gender-nonconforming clients. And musician and multidisciplinary artist takes a deep-dive into the fascinating history of artificially-synthesized voices, from Wolfgang von Kempelen鈥檚 original 鈥渟peaking machine鈥� to modern virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Echo.
5 Voice-Related Myths, Busted
1. Myth: It鈥檚 possible to determine someone鈥檚 gender identity based on the sound of their voice
When we think about a stereotypical male voice, it鈥檚 often lower-pitched. For the female voice, it鈥檚 higher. Some audiologists have gone so far as to quantify these gendered distinctions, assigning a range of 85-155 hz to the masculine register and a range of 165-255 hz to the feminine register.
However, quantifying voices in this way against higher-pitched voices and excludes people whose voices might not align with their gender identity. What鈥檚 more, it leaves a range of about 10 hz that鈥檚 considered neither masculine nor feminine.
Musician and multi-disciplinary artist Andrea Oliver Roberts finds this vocal 鈥渘o-man鈥檚 land鈥� to be particularly fascinating and troubling: 鈥淚t's interesting to me that this [range of 10 hz] is a place where no one exists, especially as a nonbinary person who has an ability to move around on the range.鈥�
2. Myth: Throughout history, higher vocal parts like soprano and alto have been sung exclusively by cisgender women
Up until the 19th century, women were not allowed to sing in church choirs. Starting as early as the 15th century, the Catholic Church and opera singing schools would buy prepubescent male children from poor families and castrate them as a way to preserve the high pitch and clear resonance of their voices. Known as castrati, these singers were celebrated within the church for their beautiful voices, but they were ostracized by society at large because of the ways their lack of testosterone production affected their physical appearance.
鈥淥ftentimes, they had very long features. Their skin would look kind of like ghosts 鈥� like very pale 鈥� and they'd have really long extremities,鈥� said vocalist Tona Brown, who became fascinated by the castrati while a student at Shenandoah Conservatory. 鈥淪ociety would make them have almost like a scarlet letter.鈥�
The popularity of the castrati peaked in the 16th-18th centuries, and the last castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, died in 1922.
3. Myth: People modify their voices for aesthetic purposes, not practical ones
As a vocal coach for trans and gender-nonconforming clients, Kevin Dorman spends much of their time helping people unlearn restrictive cultural norms about how voices 鈥渟hould鈥� sound. However, they also know that for many of their clients, modifying the voice to align with these gendered assumptions can be a matter of safety.
鈥淯ltimately, we do live in a world where people need to be safe as they walk around and want to be able to go through public spaces without feeling like there's a spotlight on them,鈥� Dorman said. 鈥淎nd so for some people, simply just getting that voice that reads as female 鈥� or as male, or as androgynous 鈥� is exactly what they want.鈥�
4. Myth: Gendered assumptions about the voice only harm trans and gender-nonconforming people
Brown鈥檚 vocal range lies in the realm of mezzo soprano. Before her transition, instructors would often restrict her from singing at the higher end of her range based on the fact that she was still presenting as male.
However, Brown shared that her barrier to accessing quality vocal instruction wasn鈥檛 specific to her identity as a trans woman. Singers whose voices have any kind of uncommon characteristics 鈥� whether in terms of timbre, range, or resonance 鈥� might have difficulty finding teachers who are equipped to train their particular instrument.
鈥淧eople don't know how to train dramatic voices very well in this country,鈥� Brown said. 鈥淎nd so if you happen to be transgender, or have any sort of rare, unique-sounding voice, you're going to have issues, and that's what I was going through. It wasn't necessarily just because I was trans; it was because I have a very unique sound.鈥�
5. Myth: Siri is female
Ask Siri about its gender, and you鈥檒l likely hear one of the following responses: 鈥淚 am genderless, like cacti and certain species of fish!鈥� or 鈥淎nimals and French nouns have gender; I do not.鈥� Despite this, virtual assistants are nearly always depicted as female, and the voice we know as Siri (which is actually based on that of ) exhibits many of the characteristics we tend to associate with women鈥檚 voices.
According to Roberts, the decision to give Siri stereotypically feminine characteristics is an intentional one. The design of voice technology and artificial intelligence 鈥� including virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa, Echo and Google Home 鈥� takes into account not just our practical needs, but our psychology. Roberts said that companies like Apple and Amazon choose to give their virtual assistants feminine characteristics since this makes it easier to collect users鈥� personal data.
鈥淸Apple and Amazon] were coding intentionally with a non-accented English voice that was coded as female to have people feel more at ease with this presence in their home,鈥� Roberts said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e surveillance devices鈥� and [a feminine voice] sounds a lot more innocuous and less threatening.鈥�
